07 July 2005, 14:36 Culture

Where I am? What happened with me?

Velimir Moist The exhibition of paintings by Andrei Volkov turned out to be not very lively. And no wonder, the themes of non-residential premises and the meaning of life turned out to be vital for the artist.

Painting by Andrei Volkov is considered painting only because it is customary in the Russian language to call works in oil on canvas. Actually, the word in this case is not the most appropriate. You won’t find any “liveness” in Volkov—neither in the sense of likeness to nature, nor in the figurative meaning of entertainment, mobility, expressiveness. Here time freezes, like cement in formwork: it flowed, chomped, trembled the surface - and grabbed. And you can’t do anything with it without a crowbar or a jackhammer. Volkov’s compositions are geometric signs into which everyday reality turns if you look at it with a long, detached gaze.

Suppose a person sits in an apartment in front of a window and sees not a landscape, which has become familiar and meaningless over the years, but a drawing of the window frame.

Maybe the person is experiencing some kind of grief, or he is simply indulging in philosophical reflections that require abstraction from momentary impressions. A stable outline appears on the retina of his eyes, essentially a symbol of his condition.

Andrey Volkov has been producing such symbols for a long time. Only over the years, instead of deserted cityscapes, their geometric equivalents began to appear. Instead of a view from the window, there is a view “at the window”: the view has narrowed, detail has disappeared, the observation point has been drawn into the room, like a turtle’s head into its shell. It’s the same with color: it has lost its shades and halftones, and has become even, almost painterly. All means are aimed at creating the feeling that there is nothing stranger than a typical city apartment.

Think about it when you're away or just at work: your house is empty, but it still looks something. The same as with you, or differently?

And in what perspective should you present your home if you are not there? Volkov doesn’t have horror stories; he does without ghosts and poltergeists. The situation is much worse: from his work it follows that in your absence nothing changes in the apartment. Do you realize the nightmare? Whether you are at home or not there is indifferent. You can re-stick the wallpaper, move the furniture, insert Euro-windows with a different frame - only the design of the sign will change. The illusion that you are at home, that everything here is familiar to you, will remain only an illusion.

Volkov probably doesn’t specifically work with urban phobias. In the sense that it does not consciously exploit them. He simply discovers them in himself and tries to convey them. The result is something opposite to classical interior painting. After all, usually the image of an interior implies the presence of a person, even if he is not visible. This was the special charm of the genre, which about two hundred years ago was called “in the rooms.” Manor enfilades and workrooms were depicted as deserted, but as if waiting for their owners and bearing the imprint of their personality.

felt The viewer finds himself in the role of an unexpected guest who, through the setting, comprehends the character of his absent counterpart - this is approximately how Tatyana Larina in Onegin’s deserted house.

Volkov has a completely different calico: in his interpretation, even Onegin himself, contemplating his office, could go crazy from the inability to understand who he is. The point of view, of course, is not very optimistic, but it has the power of authenticity. How to overcome alienation from your things, from the landscape outside the window, from yourself? Maybe not at all. Maybe we should just live with this - after all, people live with color blindness and flat feet. In any case, Volkov has no recipes. He just noticed it.

Andrey Volkov. "Empty rooms" At the M'ARS Center for Contemporary Art (Pushkarev lane, 5) until July 19.